San Diego Unseen: An Urban Portrait
Bear in Heaven
PLAN A: Small Black, Class Actress, Young Prisms, Lesands @ The Casbah. Brooklyn’s Small Black just released an excellent new album, New Chain, brimming with all the stuff bloggers have been swooning over lately— hazy synth pads, weighty drum-machine beats, vocals drenched in reverb and echo. PLAN B: Nitzer Ebb @ Brick by Brick. They might not be as terrifying as Skinny Puppy or as popular as Nine Inch Nails, but old-school U.K. industrial outfit Nitzer Ebb can certainly get a dance floor moving with those slamming beats and sinister chants. BACK- UP PLAN: Two Door Cinema Club, Generationals, Funeral Party @ Belly Up.
Thursday, Nov. 4
PLAN A: The Tree Ring, The Vision of a Dying World @ Sushi Performance & Visual Art. Each of the four shows at “Four Day Weekend,” Sezio’s hotly anticipated weekend-long “anti-festival,” sounds excellent. The Dodos and Avi Buffalo will likely be the biggest draws (they play on Saturday and Sunday, respectively), but you’d be remiss to skip the wonderful folk of locals The Tree Ring. Check out the full lineup at sezio.org. PLAN B: Matthew Dear, Writer @ Porter’s Pub (UCSD campus). There’s nothing quite like electro producer Matthew Dear’s new album, Black City: It’s at once dark and iridescent, haunting and groovy, totally bizarre but totally right. I’m looking forward to seeing how he plays an infectious banger like “You Put a Smell on Me” with a live band. BACKUP PLAN: Mavis Staples, Charlie Musselwhite @ Belly Up.
Friday, Nov. 5
PLAN A: Kisses, Butterfly Bones, Rafter @ Soda Bar. Had a bad day? This infusion of romantic electro-pop (Kisses), inspirational new-wave (Butterfly Bones) and funky indierock (Rafter) is sure to cheer you up.
PLAN B: Battlehooch, Vegetarian Werewolf, Scales @ Tin Can Ale House. These acts complement each other nicely. While Vegetarian Werewolf (the alter-ego of The Hot Moon’s John Paul Labno) takes a hard look at the world with a keyboard and a boombox, San Francisco’s Battlehooch puts on a zany show that’ll make you think of Devo on LSD. BACKUP PLAN: White Apple Tree, Swim Party, D/Wolves @ The Casbah.
Saturday, Nov. 6
PLAN A: Dr. Dog, Here We Go Magic, Good Old War @ Belly Up. Dr. Dog’s new album, Shame, Shame, saw the band’s retro rock blossom with infectious hooks, multipart harmonies and flourishes of honky-tonk piano and church bells. As for Here We Go Magic, well, we liked them so much that we put a feature story about them on this page. PLAN B: Ise Lyfe @ Queen Bee’s (7 p.m.). A rapper, spoken-word artist, community organizer and all-around champion of social change, Oakland’s Ise Lyfe will merge music, theater, social commentary and traditional African American spirituals at this show, titled “Pistols and Prayers.” (He also performs Friday and Sunday.) BACKUP PLAN: Raw Moans, Ume, Shapes of Future Frames @ Bar Pink. If you missed local gloomy electro-pop duo Raw Moans at their live debut last week, be sure to catch them before they take off on their European tour.
Sunday, Nov. 7
PLAN A: No Joy, La Sera, Heavy Hawaii, Dirty Beaches, DJs Charles Rowell and Mario Orduno @ Tin Can Ale House. La Sera have the kind of Phil Spector-inspired girlgroup feel you’d hear in frontwoman Katy Goodman’s other band, New York’s Vivian Girls. But she’s traded strippeddown punk riffs for the sunny melodies and dulcet vocal harmonies of ’50s pop. As for garage-rock duo No Joy, the name pretty much says it all. “Heedless,” a track that’s been making rounds in the blogosphere lately, features ghostly vocals buried deep in guitar fuzz. PLAN B: Monarch!, Trees, Mission:Valley, Monochromacy @ Che Café. Monarch and Trees both have everything a decent doom-metal band needs—gut-churning riffs, brutally slow rhythms—but what makes them so special are their vocalists’ tortured wails, which could very well have come straight from the depths of hell. BACKUP PLAN: The Heavy, Wallpaper @ The Casbah.
Monday, Nov. 8
PLAN A: David Dondero, The Moaners, Longstay @ The Casbah. David Dondero used to play drums for Florida folk-rockers This Bike is a Pipe Bomb, a great band with an even greater name, but he’s first and foremost a fine songwriter whose country tunes are often as ragged as they are lovely. BACKUP PLAN: Satellite Run, Grave Babies, Le Switch @ Tin Can Ale House.
Tuesday, Nov. 9
PLAN A: Bear in Heaven, Lower Dens, Sun Airway @ The Casbah. With its indelible melodies, sweeping synths and precise tribal rhythms, Bear in Heaven is one of those rare bands that doesn’t sound like its influences. The Brooklyn trio stole the show at The Casbah last March, but Lower Dens makes for a formidable opener this time around. PLAN B: Rufus Reid “Out Front” Trio @ Anthology. Usually, a jazz bassist holds down the rhythm while somebody else takes the lead. Not so with Rufus Reid, an esteemed bassist known for his melodic grooves and subdued solos. BACKUP PLAN: Candy Claws, The Chain Gang of 1974, Teen porn @ Tin Can Ale House.
